Legacy of the Sith is only ten days away! Am I hyped? Do I feel prepared? Let's discuss.
First off, I'm looking forward to the new story as usual. Bioware's storytelling has been consistently enjoyable to me over the last few years, and I've got no reason to assume that Legacy of the Sith will deliver any less. The teaser of the mystery Twi'lek has me intrigued, but I've got to admit that I'm not sitting here racking my brain and speculating about who she could be - I mostly just like to let these things come at me and be surprised.
In terms of everything else, my mood is honestly a bit "eh". I seem to have fallen into a similar pre-expansion funk as I did before Onslaught, where I was initially quite intrigued by the PTS but then quickly lost interest and played very little during the weeks immediately leading up to the expansion launch. (Though once the expansion was actually out, I loved it.)
My ops team has been on a pre-expansion break for several weeks already, and the PTS once again didn't manage to hold my interest - I didn't even end up giving feedback on the Commando class changes, which I really should have done I guess! However, as I observed two years ago, I'm just not that into being an unpaid game tester.
In fact, more than ever I found the PTS to be a very double-edged sword this time around. I think it's good that Bioware is showing us stuff early and that they're taking feedback to make tweaks to optimise things before going live, but at the same time there's a sort of "culture" around PTS reporting that I've really come to despise, picking up on every little thing, spreading it around as news and delving into all kinds of speculation about what this or that is going to mean for the expansion. I know it's well-intended and I don't hold anyone's excitement against them, but at least in my social sphere the effects it's had and that I've had a chance to observe have been mostly off-putting, as every update from the PTS seemed to turn into a game of telephone and people would get all hyped up or panicky about things that nobody even said in the first place.
Eventually I decided to just stay away from most things PTS-related myself, as I simply got tired of repeating "guys, first off that isn't what he said at all, and secondly, you know the PTS isn't final" over and over again. If I saw a Tweet or screenshot pointing out a new feature such as the revamped character creation screen, I'd have a quick glance and then move on. I don't mind a brief heads-up that things are changing, but I don't want to hear all about a bunch of details that may not end up reflecting the final build anyway.
And it does seem that there are a lot of smaller changes coming too, more than we were initially aware of. However, I just don't see the point of fretting too much about them in advance. In a bit more than a week, we can all see for ourselves how it pans out.
A little over two months ago I made a post with pre-expansion goals I'd set for myself. How have I been doing with these? The answer is "alright", but not great. I only achieved two of them in full, which were Renown 999 on my main and to finish levelling my pacifist. In terms of getting my alts caught up with the story, I made some progress but not as much as I'd originally planned, with only five or six of my main eight being fully caught up (though none of them are missing much, so there's still time I guess). I also made good progress on my saboteur agent for a few weeks and then just stopped again. Only four KotET chapters left! One day...
I'm still optimistic about the expansion, and I'm sure I'll have a good time with the new story and doing group content with my guildies again. I've just avoided spending too much energy on preparation and worrying about what's coming. What about you?
After trying to be a counterpoint about some of the changes when the first cycle of the current PTS went up, I basically stepped back from interacting with it. There were so many that were over-the-top upset about things that I had to get away from them. I have no problems agreeing to disagree about the changes, but "Woooo", so many folks were acting as if they'd never be able to play the game again effectively. That over-reaction was just sucking the enjoyment out of me.
ReplyDeleteI have dinked around looking at some of the changes and started trying to figure out what my second combat style will be on some of my characters. I do wish the second one wasn't a permanent choice as I'd really like to have a bit more flexibility, but it is what it is. I plan on going in and just enjoying the game for what it is.
"What about you?"
ReplyDeleteI've been around since release. Playing the game without huge breaks, maybe a few weeks in the summer or around christmas. Most of the time, i'm able to log in two or three times a week.
I'm not really worried about 7.0. It will be a solid expansion, like every other expansion before. This is kind of good, kind of bad. Because with every new expansion i realize i'm not the main audience for the developers anymore. Most of the time they release stuff that is in itself fine, but not necessarily what i need after all these years in the game.
For example... Combat Styles is nice.. but with over 50 toons it is not very likely, that i want to start a new character again from level 1, just to see how the story plays out with a different specc, that is not an og specc. Seen all stories, played all speccs. So whatever.
I'm looking forward to see some folks again, people who quit or took a break a while ago.